Nome, AK — Monday night’s Nome City Council meeting will determine if elected city officials will receive regular wages for their employment in addition to a monthly stipend. A second reading, public hearing, and final vote on this ordinance will all happen during the regular meeting.

Included on the meeting agenda is a public hearing to consider Norton Sound G-O Development’s request to rezone portions of the old hospital. Donny Olson, one of the three owners of the Norton Sound G-O Development company, attended the last city planning commission meeting to request that the planning commission rezone portions of blocks 109, 110, 125, 126, and 127 from general use to commercial use. During this meeting, Olson stated the reasoning behind his request to zone the property as commercial property was to satisfy interested companies who are willing to buy it.

Also tonight, Nome’s city councilmen will read an ordinance to prohibit the sale of liquor products in containers smaller than 750 milliliters at all locations south of 3rd avenue. This is only the first reading; no discussion or final decision will be made on this ordinance tonight.

The Council will commence the meeting at 7pm at City Hall and will adjourn immediately following an executive session to verbally review the City Manager, Tom Moran’s annual performance.

]]>http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2016/09/12/nome-city-council-to-review-elected-officials-wages-tonight/feed/024978Norton Sound Women Rally Against Environmental Contaminants, High Cancer Rates Among Alaska Nativeshttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2015/02/04/norton-sound-women-rally-against-environmental-contaminants-high-cancer-rates-among-alaska-natives/
http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2015/02/04/norton-sound-women-rally-against-environmental-contaminants-high-cancer-rates-among-alaska-natives/#commentsThu, 05 Feb 2015 07:34:55 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=14308Women of the Norton Sound are rallying against high rates of cancer, developmental disabilities and other diseases linked to contaminants and former military sites in the Bering Strait.]]>http://www.knom.org/wp-audio/2015/02/2015-02-04-ACAT.mp3

Recently, on the top floor of Norton Sound Regional Hospital, two-dozen women gathered around a large table. They traveled to Nome for a conference to discuss a dire concern: high rates of cancer, developmental disabilities and other diseases linked to contaminants and former military sites in the Bering Strait.

“We hear over and over: by the time we found out we have cancer, it’s too late. We have a cancer crisis. So, my goal was to bring women from each of the 16 communities NSHC serves to document health concerns,” said Vi Waghiyi of Savoonga. She’s the environmental health and justice program director for ACAT: Alaska Community Action on Toxics.

At this gathering in Nome, the women began documenting their communities’ health concerns. With support from ACAT, they want to present a report to healthcare providers and policymakers to ask for change.

“We wanted to empower the women—how to testify, write letters to the editor—because as women, we’re the backbones of our communities,” said Waghiyi.

The women raised concerns about lack of information on toxic sites, lack of effective communication with health care providers, and not having environmental health threats taken seriously. According to ACAT Executive Director Pam Miller, “There’s concern that a lot of this illness might be related to chemical exposures from military contamination, and also this region, because it’s in the Arctic, is on the receiving end for global contaminants that move into this area on wind and ocean currents from all over the world.”

Military contamination has been of much concern on St. Lawrence Island, where two U.S. bases were established during the Cold War. Savoonga health aide Annie Alowa started noticing an unusual number of cancers among the people—before she passed away of cancer herself in 1999. Waghiyi says these contaminants are still in the marine mammals that constitute most of island residents’ traditional diets.

While some of these larger battles over eliminating toxins may take years to wage, there are short-term goals in sight. The gathering concluded with a call to Senator Donny Olson in Juneau thanking him for support of the Toxic Free Children’s Act, which would eliminate toxic flame-retardants from children’s products. The group asked him to push for an even stronger bill during this legislative session. While Olson is in the minority this year, he says he’ll continue leveraging his support and call on the women for testimony.

“That’s exactly what we need,” said Olson, over the teleconference. “We need people out there who are passionate about the subject, who are knowledgeable and who go and make their voices known.”

Waghiyi says it can be overwhelming trying to change the business practices of large companies that are producing products with toxins, but now a grandmother herself, she says there’s no other choice but to keep fighting for a safer, cleaner world for her children.

“We’re up against multinational corporations that have no idea what’s going on with our people. We have to be the conscience,” she said. “So that’s why we go miles and miles away, travel to Washington, DC. We have a right to be at the table for making decisions.”

ACAT was founded in 1997, and is composed mostly of women who work for environmental health and justice in Alaska Native communities.

]]>http://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2015/02/04/norton-sound-women-rally-against-environmental-contaminants-high-cancer-rates-among-alaska-natives/feed/414308Arctic Resource and Infrastructure Meeting Convenes in Gambellhttp://www.knom.org/wp/blog/2014/04/30/arctic-resource-and-infrastructure-meeting-convenes-in-gambell/
Wed, 30 Apr 2014 22:04:42 +0000http://www.knom.org/wp/?p=8691Yesterday in Gambell state-wide players gathered to discuss Arctic development. Presenters included state and industry representatives, government research groups, and native and village corporations. The Bering Sea Alliance, LLC organized the event.]]>

Players from across Alaska met in Gambell Tuesday to discuss arctic development.

Presenters included state and industry representatives, government research groups, and native and village corporations. The Bering Sea Alliance, LLC organized the event. CEO Art Ivanoff laid out the meeting’s three components.

One, arctic resource development. “It’s something we think is necessary,” Ivanoff said, “just based on the unemployment, underemployment that we have in the villages.”

Two, arctic infrastructure. “Infrastructure we think is critical, because we think the villages have something to offer.” Ivanoff continued, “We know Nome and Port Clarence is critical, but we also think that smaller, satellite ports are needed just because the amount of traffic that we’re seeing, the amount of natural gas and oil that are found in the arctic.”

Three, oil spill response. “Just realizing that with all the traffic, there’s potential for an accident to occur, and we want to be prepared,” finished Ivanoff.

The Bering Sea Alliance is composed of seven village corporations in the Bering Straits Region. Each is dedicated to developing arctic resources while protecting their subsistence way of life.

The meeting intended to create action items for each of these components, but poor weather the night before kept planes from reaching the island. The delay pushed back the meeting and canceled attendance for key presenters like the Coast Guard, U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, and Senator Lesil McGuire, Co-Chair of the Alaska Arctic Policy Commission.

With the abbreviated schedule and loss of voices, attendees heard a series of presentations instead of arctic planning.

However, the closest offering of an action item came from Dr. Martin Robards with the Wildlife Conservation Society.

“We’d have two or three people out of each of the coastal communities who once a year are trained in oil spill response,” Robards said, “and also in their role within that larger Incident Command. So they become the people with the knowledge base on how the big picture looks within the community. They’re the go-to people. They have the training.”

He also advised the region to identify subsistence areas to protect first in the case of an oil spill.

“They we would start planning how you would deal with those specific areas.” Robards explained, “It gets away from this idea of just having an equipment cache somewhere to having the people trained to do something very specific at a specific location with the right equipment.”

Other presentations included the U.S. Geological Survey, who provided an overview of mineral deposits on the Seward Peninsula. A representative from the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management said the Bureau planed to release recommendations on arctic drilling later this year that should integrate traditional knowledge gathered from Alaska Natives. What those recommendations would be was not shared.

Senator Donny Olson and Representative Neil Foster also spoke. Both recommended the Bering Sea communities put in writing what changes and benefits they want in regards to arctic development so they can advocate for those positions in the legislature.

The meeting continues through today with a presentation from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.